A sphere of influence (SOI) is the network of past clients, family, friends and community contacts an agent systematically stays in touch with as a referral source — and in Canada, how long you can keep emailing that list without fresh consent is set by federal anti-spam law, not by how recently someone closed with you.
Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL), s.10(10) gives implied consent to send a commercial electronic message from “the purchase or lease of a product, goods, a service, land or an interest or right in land, within the two-year period” before the message is sent, or from “an inquiry or application, within the six-month period.” A past client sits in implied consent for two years from closing; someone who only inquired and never became a client drops out after six months. The CRTC’s own FAQ adds that express consent “does not expire” but “the recipient has the right to withdraw their consent at any time,” and that holding someone’s business card gives implied consent only for “the recipient’s role, functions or duties in an official or business capacity” — not a general newsletter.
CASL only reaches electronic messages: a printed newsletter mailed to the same sphere sits entirely outside it. The stakes for getting the electronic side wrong are real — CASL’s own administrative penalty, at s.20(4), tops out at “$1,000,000 for an individual” and “$10,000,000 for any other person.”
An agent’s SOI list holds 400 past clients, 90 of whom last transacted more than two years ago and have never re-engaged. Under s.10(10)(a), implied consent for those 90 has lapsed: an email newsletter to them now needs express consent already on file or has to be dropped from the electronic send list. A postal mailer to those same 90 people is unaffected, because CASL does not reach paper mail at all.
See also: the compliance stakes of getting a mass email wrong belong with administrative penalty, defined, and the follow-up cadence itself is covered in the follow-up message that actually gets a reply and speed-to-lead: why the first five minutes decide the deal.
A 30-minute call is enough to tell you whether AI pays for itself here.
